Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence Editor and a world-renowned expert on global security and terrorism issues. He is the author of several critically acclaimed books. His new book, Churchill's First War: Young Winston and the fight against the Taliban, is published by Macmillan in London and Thomas Dunne Books in New York. He appears regularly on radio and television in Britain and America.

Government incompetence is destroying the British Army's reputation

Last night's Dispatches programme on Channel Four made depressing viewing for anyone like me who still clings to the forlorn hope that our mission to Afghanistan will be a success.

Stephen Grey's excellent documentary showed precisely why, on a number of levels, our Afghan mission is in such disarray. From the outset the deployment has been undermined by confusion within the government's senior ranks over why British forces were being sent to Afghanistan in the first place.

John Reid, the then defence secretary, said the mission was primarily about reconstruction, and expressed the utterly naïve view that British forces might be able to conclude their mission without firing a shot in anger.

The inability of the government and the military's top brass to grasp what they were getting themselves into resulted in the initial deployment of 3,000 troops being hopelessly under resourced, both in terms of men and equipment.

Despite the undoubted heroism displayed by our forces fighting on the front line, the end result of this shabby and incompetent treatment of our nation's finest has been to severely damage the standing of the military – particulary the Army, which has borne the brunt of the fighting – both at home and abroad.

In Britain support for the Afghan campaign has fallen dramatically because the general public hasn't the foggiest idea what we are doing there.

Meanwhile our American allies, who have already been embarrassed by our indecent retreat from Basra, are now becoming increasingly frustrated by our failure to deliver in Helmand.

It's not just that we don't have enough "force enablers" – armoured vehicles and helicopters, the government has also failed to provide sufficient force levels to adequately secure the southern Afghan province. As a consequence the Americans – as happened in Iraq – are now having to send their own troops to help bail us out.

As a result the proud reputation of our military for delivering results on the battlefield lies in tatters. All those responsible for this appalling state of affairs, whether in the government or the military, should hang their heads in shame.